


The Memory of A People

by ertrunkener_Wassergeist



Series: Born Into the Wilds [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Galahd (Final Fantasy XV), Galahdian Culture (Final Fantasy XV), Galahdian Language, Galahdian Religion, Gen, Hadnissa, Traditions, Worldbuilding, headcanons, more or less cultural stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-03-30 00:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ertrunkener_Wassergeist/pseuds/ertrunkener_Wassergeist
Summary: The memory of a people is long. It is even longer when their very culture is built upon stories.Here are little drabbles and one shots that aren't tales strictly speaking or tales that don't fit into the main story. Mostly they are things I write over on tumblr. I also do story prompts for this verse if anyone is interested.





	1. Stories are told, Fires burn and Galahd remembers

**Author's Note:**

> This one is about Galahdians and their relationship to the act of story telling and what it does for them.

Fires burn and stories are told.

Every Galahkar grows up with that simple truth. It is carved into their bones, they breath it with the air and they live it with every action taken. 

Their First Hunt is a story between themselves and the fire, their first braid a story between themselves, the fire and their family. 

The jungle is populated with stories, their land breathes stories, grows them with every turn of the sun and the moon.

Galahkari lives are stories.

When Galahd falls many think the stories gone. Gone with the smell of burnt flesh and the sound of screeching metal. 

Fire gives, fire takes.

Like it has always done. Like it will always do. 

But the fires always keep burning and as long as they burn, stories will be told. Stories will be told and the Galahkari remember. They remember the cool shadows of the jungle on hot summer days, the smell of growing greens after the rain in spring. 

The fires keep burnig, stories are told and the Galahkari remember. They remember the smell of the untamable sea and the sound of the jungle at dusk. 

They remember Galahd.

They had defied the very beings the rest of Eos worship as Gods and had lived to tell of it. Had lived and thriven and now they will do so again because now it’s not Gods they defy but men.

And what are men against Gods?

Stories are told, the fires burn and Galahd remembers.


	2. For Hearth and Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I always wondered where For Hearth and Home came from. This is my take on it.  
> (I refuse to believe that Glauca came up with it.)

_For Hearth and Home_  is Galahd’s motto. It came to being during the long years of conflict with the rest of Eos.

It’s to remind them why they said  _no_  to the Astrals, why they dared to defy the very Gods that are supposed to protect their world  ~~but insead destroyed it~~. 

They do it for the fire that gives them life and light, that warms them and is their staunchest ally if you respect it. (They never stopped to worship fire when everybody else did after Solheim fell. It’s what made them great and the Galahkari won’t forget that.)

They do it for the homes they built with their own two hands. For everybody who lives under their roofs, their families, their comrades, the ancestors that visit them sometimes from beyond the gates. But home is also the feeling of freedom, the leafy shadows in the jungle, jumps from steep cliffs into the river below, the lively dances in the town squares. 

That’s what it means for the Galahkari. 

For Hearth and Home.

_**Do Zestia Rid Rihum.** _

And Drautos remembers that. He remembers at least that part of his Galahdian heritage and he kicks it into the dirt because this is something you don’t lie about. The determination to stand together against everyone and everything, even Gods.

But he did.

He lied.

And once it comes to light, Galahd won’t show mercy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last part of this is based on my HC that Drautos is at least half Galahdian (and so knows part of the culture) but was adopted by a Nifelheimr soldier by the name of Venius Glauca after his birth parents died in a Lucian counter attack when he was about nine or so.   
> That's also a big part of why he hates Lucis.


	3. The Voice-that-was-many-and-one and the Sinking of the Black Ships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is important for the Galahkari to remember their ancestors, especially the ones that sacrificed themselves or even a part of them for the people. This is a cautionary tale of what happens if they forget or just never knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hadnissa words:  
> Galahkari: people of Galahd

During the autumn storms there is a voice on the wind, they say. 

A voice full of desperation and hate and pain. If you hear it you stay at home and don’t come out until the storm is over, or if you’re caught outside you find shelter and  _pray_  to your ancestors and the spirits of the isles that you won’t be able to make out the words it says.

 _No one alive knows what its trying to say_ , whisper the elders by the hearth to their audience while the winds rattle at their homes with invisible fingers, _but history has it that those who could understand vanished into the dark depths of the sea to be devoured by its inhabitants, alive and dead._  

Some say it had been a man, others say it had been a woman and again another group claims it to have been a child. 

No one knows and it rankles because they can’t honour this person’s sacrifice the way it deserves to be done. They can’t whisper a name into the flames as a prayer for strength in the face of insurmountable odds, for endurance to preserve what is undeniably and utterly  _theirs_. 

Cannot add a name to the song of heros sung every Rememberance Day. 

They can’t do anything and it rankles and for their failure the voice on the wind during the autumn storms takes those who understand it, for it is lonely in its duty.

It began with black sails on the horizon one autumn day when the sea was but a beautiful mirror reflecting the sky. 

Black sails like ominous clouds announcing the coming storm.

And come it did.

Not with wind and rain and thunder and lighning, but with the edge of a blade, the spilling of blood and the crackling of powerful magic.

For the Conqueror King had come.

Had come to make the isles his. To chain Galahd - named for the  _freedom of choice_  - to his rule and the rule of those after him. To force them into the right believe and the Galahkari couldn’t let that happen.

They  _refused_  to let that happen.

So they fought. And died. They fought with everything they had and still kept loosing because just more enemies kept coming. 

They were tired and loosing and desperate and none knew what should be done. The only thing they did know was that none of them would bow to this king who would see everything destroyed that they had ever built, that they had ever  _believed_  in. 

One day, during another autumn near ten years after the first one, another wave of black ships was coming and the people knew it would be the last. After this one they would cease to exist. But still they would fight so they would be able to stand before their ancestors without shame.

Instead, something happened.

Winds rose and howled with an unbridled fury, the sky darkened and the sea churned as its spirits reached for the intruders with greedy hands.

A voice was heard on the wind. A voice that sung of vengeance and fury and protection with every voice Galahd had ever heard. The young, the old, male, female, human and not.

No one could understand what it said, but everbody knew what it meant. For them, the Galahkari, it was protection and life, but for the black ships it was destruction and death.

The voice-that-was-many-and-one sung and called the storms until long after the last of the ships had been swallowed by the churning waters to be devoured by its beings, living and dead alike.

For near a hundred years no Lucian ship dared to come within sight of Galahd in fear of its fury and thirst for blood in vengeance of its fallen.

Galahd had shown its power. But this power came with a steep price, for power never comes without it. A life had been demanded and a life had been paid.

No one had been able to find out who had done so and it rankled.

And still the voice-that-was-many-and-one sings on the winds of the autumn storms and tries to lure the people into the sea where only death awaits. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contained in this is the view Galahd has on the Conqueror. In Lucis he is revered for ushering in an age of prosperity and his greatest feat is said to have been the uniting of the Lucian continent.  
> The Galahkari hate and fear him. They waged a near ten year war against his conquest and his supression and destruction of their culture and nearly lost. They were driven to the brink and only a sacrifice of blood and life willingly given could safe them.  
> In Lucian history books the failed conquest is scarcely mentioned. Only that a great fleet of ships sunk in a huge storm around Galahd that lasted for weeks. The Lucians like to think Galahd is under their rule and the Galahkari don't really do anything to dispute that as long as the Lucians stay the hell off their isles. Basically they pretty much ignored each other until Nifelheim began its own war of conquest.


End file.
